BIBLE BAPTISM NEVER 
IMMERSION. 



BY 



/ 



Rev. GEO. C. BUSH. 




PHILADELPHIA : 
The J as. B. Rodgees Printing Company, 

62 and 5<i North Sixth Street. 
1888. 









Copyright, 1888, by 
REV. GEO. C. BUSH. 



All Rights Reserved. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. One baptism— baptism by the Holy Spirit 7 

II. The modal acts of this baptism are by pouring, sprink- 
ling, descending, falling upon — opposite to immersion. 10 

III. Baptizo, its meaning 22 

IY. Baptizo en — baptize in and baptize with 47 

Y. Baptizo eis— baptize into 50 

VI. Baptismos — baptism 52 

VII. Baptisma — baptism 53 

VTII. Immersion, why introduced 55 

IX. Reasons assumed for immersion 58 

X. Posture in baptism 68 

XI. The baptism of children 70 

XII. Histoi ical evidence 85 

XIII. The relation of baptized children to the Church .... 90 

XIT. Conclusion 91 



INTKODUCTIOK 



The writer of this Book is a believer 
in baptism with water. He writes to con- 
firm like believers, and, if possible, to con- 
vince others that this is the better way. 
The Church is to see eye to eye. She is 
to reach this unity by clearer views. It is 
hoped this work may contribute something 
to this glorious result. The writer wQuld 
neither injure nor disband the beloved Chris- 
tians calling themselves the Baptist Church. 
He has preached for and labored with them. 
He seeks only to have them come into bet- 
ter views and more charitable practices, has- 
tening that day when the people of God 
shall be one in communion as they are all 
one in spirit. 

Geo. C. Bush. 
West Chester, Pa., June 16, 1888. 
1* 



BAPTISM. 



CHAPTEE I. 
THE ONE BAPTISM. 

WHILE baptism with water was prac- 
ticed by the Apostles, yet baptism by 
the Spirit is oftener mentioned. Dr. Pep- 
per, a Baptist writer, says truly, Gospel and 
Ordinances are the same thing in two forms. 
If all our Baptist friends had held this 
truth, Prof. Dagg would not write, " Now 
there is a baptism of the Spirit ; if water 
baptism is a perpetual ordinance, then there 
are two baptisms instead of one." Nor 
would Dr. Carson so mistake as to write, " If 
there is such a thing as infant baptism, there 
must be two baptisms." Infant and adult 

7 



8 BAPTISM. 

baptisms are no more two than American 
and English are two. Nor should another 
author, R. Ingham, conclude, " If this one 
baptism was by the Spirit, then Paul was 
guilty of an omission, nay, of a misstate- 
ment.^ The Fathers taught truly (as Je- 
rome) " since all have been baptized into 
one body, they have received the same 
Spirit." And Ignatius writes, " There is 
one baptism, that which is given into the 
death of our Lord." 

The one baptism is the blessed work of 
the Holy Spirit baptizing us into Christ and 
so into His body the Church. He who 
wrote to the Ephesians, there is one baptism, 
wrote the same truth more fully to the 
Corinthians. By one Spirit are we all bap- 
tized into one body, and have all been made 
to drink into one Spirit. 1 Cor. 12 : 13. In 
Gal. 3 : 27, he writes that this baptism is 
into Christ. Rom. 6 : 3 explains it farther 
As many of us as have been baptized into 
Christ, have been baptized into His death. 
This baptism gives us all the benefits of 



THE ONE BAPTISM. 9 

Christ's death. It is as if we died, were 
buried, and rose again, with sins all forgiverf 
and forsaken, to walk in newness of life. 

This one baptism is effected by the Holy 
Ghost. The Greeks said that wine-drinking 
baptized, taking an opiate baptized ; so the 
Apostle follows Greek usage, saying in con- 
nection with baptism, we drink into one 
spirit. Many copies leave out the preposi- 
tion into. Thus it is exact Greek usage to 
say the baptism was by drinking the one 
Spirit. 




CHAPTER II. 

BAPTISM BY THE SPIRIT — ITS MODE. WHAT 
ARE THE MODAL ACTS OF THIS BAPTISM? 

OUR Baptist friends warn us off from 
such an examination, saying (Dr. Car- 
son) " it is a figurative expression. Be- 
lievers are said to be immersed into the 
Spirit, not because there is anything like im- 
mersion in the manner of the reception of 
the Spirit," — " there can be no likeness to it 
in the literal baptism." 

What is the meaning of such phrases ? 

1. The one great baptism which Jesus ef- 
fects by His Spirit is only figurative, not 
real, like man's baptism. 

2. This figurative baptism is a figure that 
can have no correspondence to that which is 
figured — a figure which has no likeness to the 

10 



BAPTISM BY THE SPIRIT. H 

reality. What man, in his reason, ever used 
such a figure ? How wrong to impute such 
a violation of propriety to the Holy Spirit ! 

3. His writing " immersed into the Spirit " 
contradicts Scripture. We are baptized into 
Christ, not into the Spirit. The Spirit is the 
baptizing agent, not the receiving element. 
Dr. C. errs here as he does about Pentecost 
baptism, calling it immersion into emblems 
of the Spirit. What idea has an immersion- 
ist of immersion into emblems ! This is as 
ridiculous as the Doctor's idea of Israel's 
baptism in the sea, calling it a " dry dip/' 
Pentecost baptism was not into emblems of 
the Spirit, but baptism by the Spirit. 

4. But the gravest error of such writing 
is calling the baptism of the Spirit figurative. 
If there is anything most positively real, 
real in the experience of Christians and es- 
sential in the teachings of our Lord, it is 
this very baptism of the Spirit. The two 
great transactions revealed in Scripture are 
1st, the death of Christ to save sinners, and 
2d, the application of that death in the 



12 BAPTISM. 

blood of sprinkling by the Holy Spirit. Let 
no man depreciate the chiefest of God's do- 
ings. 

But despite the warning not to investi- 
gate, we examine the modal acts ascribed to 
the Spirit. As it is the one baptism of 
which water baptism is the symbol, its modal 
acts may be our guide. 

John said, I baptize with water, Jesus 
shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. 
Here the contrast is not in the mode, but in 
the instrument. Both John and Jesus bap- 
tized, one with water, the other with the 
Holy Ghost. Our Lord said, Acts 11 : 16, 
John baptized with water, but ye shall be 
baptized with the Holy Ghost. Peter says, 
Acts 11 : 15, the Holy Ghost fell on Corne- 
lius and friends as on us at the beginning. 
Causing the Holy Spirit to fall on Cornelius 
was the same in mode as that of Pentecost. 
This baptism was effected by the Spirit's 
being poured out Acts 2: 17. This was 
prophesied by Joel. Peter says that proph- 
ecy of pouring out the Spirit was that day 



BAPTISM BY THE SPIRIT. 13 

fulfilled. This baptism was by pouring out. 
Acts 10 : 45, or falling upon, Acts 10: 44. So 
the Samaritans, Acts 8 : 16, 17, received 
the Holy Spirit by his falling upon them. 
Ez. 11: 5, says, The Spirit fell upon me. 
Prophets and Christians received the Spirit 
by his falling upon — being poured upon 
them. And this is called a baptism by 
John and Peter and by our Lord. Are 
they competent witnesses ? " No dipping, 
no baptism," is disclaimed by this testi- 
mony. 

In John 16 : 7, our Lord said, I will 
send the Comforter. Acts 2 : 83, records 
" having received of the Father the promise 
of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this 
which ye now see and hear. Again the bap- 
tism of the Spirit is called an anointing. 
Acts 10 : 38. God anointed Jesus with the 
Holy Ghost. Pouring oil upon kings- 
anointed them for their office. Pouring the 
Spirit upon Jesus was his anointing. So he 
is called The Anointed ; in Greek, Christos ; 
in Hebrew, Messiah. Anointing is then the 
2 



14 BAFTISM. 

equivalent of the Spirit's coming upon — 
baptizing him. 

Another word often describes this modal 
act. Matt. 3 : 16. Jesus saw the Spirit de- 
scending like a dove. John 1 : 33. 
John the Baptist saw the Spirit de- 
scending from heaven. Here the descent of 
the Spirit was Christ's baptism by the Spirit, 
and the proof that he should baptize with 
the Holy Ghost. Here the modal act was 
the descent of the Spirit. So common is 
this idea of Spiritual baptism, that a Bap- 
tist Conference in England lately sent saluta- 
tions to one here, " praying the descent of the 
baptism of the Spirit upon them." Chris- 
tians think alike, pray alike, and send salu- 
tations correctly about the " one baptism/' of 
which water baptism is only the profession. 
Acts 10: 47, teaches that Peter was moved to 
apply water baptism by seeing the baptism 
of the Spirit fall on (v. 44), poured out (v. 
45). Did he reason thus, because I have 
seen Jesus pour out His Spirit, therefore, I 
will immerse them 2 How absurd to repre- 



BAPTISM BY THE SPIRIT 15 

sent that outpouring of the Spirit by any 
ceremony with water if the w T ater was not 
poured also ! An immersion eould have no 
correspondence. It would be a contradic- 
tion. 

It confirms this view to consider that 
purifying in the Old Testament is effected in 
the same way. Is. 52 : 15, He shall sprinkle 
many nations. Ez. 36 : 25, I will sprin- 
kle clean water upon you. Hos. 14 : 5, I 
will be as the dew. Ps. 72 : 6, He shall 
come down like rain. 

Now the dear friends, whom we would 
fain win to see eye to eye with us, believe 
these texts describe the modal acts of the 
Spirit. Let baptize with water, have the 
same modal acts, and the barrier between 
churches is cast down. If baptism with 
water is made like that of the Spirit, then 
the water should be poured out, caused to 
fall on, to sprinkle, to descend as dew, as 
rain, as pure water. 

This view is confirmed by considering 
that the record always is baptism with, not 



16 BAPTISM. 

in, water. The water is always like the 
Spirit — the instrument. Baptisms may be 
into Paul, into Moses, into Christ's death. 
But there is no record of a baptism into 
water. It is vain to say baptize has the 
power to carry one under water, when the 
constant usage of Scripture makes the bap- 
tizing instrument descend. The Greeks also 
used baptize where there was no immersion 
in water. They said one was baptized with 
wine and taxes and tears and questions and 
griefs and vice. They understand baptize 
to indicate a change, not in one mode, but in 
any mode. Chrysostom, the eloquent Greek 
preacher, said John was baptized by putting 
his hand in baptism on the head of our 
Lord. The Fathers said that all waters were 
baptized by the baptism of Jesus. They 
did not mean immersed, but consecrated. Do 
men now know Greek better than the 
Greeks V Would Scripture describe the one 
baptism of the Spirit as a descent, a falling 
upon, a pouring out, if a valid baptism was 
the exact reverse? 



BAPTISM BY THE SPIRIT. fl 

But this position is strengthened by the 
representations of our Lord's baptism, in the 
most ancient churches. In them all, John 
stands pouring water upon Jesus. Some of 
these pictures are believed to have been made 
in the fourth and fifth centuries. Constan- 
tine and the Empress are represented as sit- 
ting in a bath, while Eusebius pours the 
water of baptism. As the Corinthians ex- 
aggerated the supper, so Constantine added 
to the rite by getting into a bath. But 
what was the essence of his baptism? Surely 
it was the application of water and pronounc- 
ing the words of consecration — -I baptize 
thee. 

This position is confirmed also by the 
" Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," that 
wonderful book compiled, it is supposed, 
about a.d. 150. Chapter vii. teaches : " Now 
concerning baptism, so baptize, speaking first 
all these things, baptize into the name of 
the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, 
with living water. If thou hast not living 
water, baptize with reference to other water ; 

2* 



18 BAPTISM. 

and if thou art not able with cold, with 
warm. If thou hast not both, then pour 
upon the head water into the name of 
the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. 
And before the baptism, let the baptizer and 
the baptized and some others, if they can, 
fast : But command the baptized to fast one 
or two days before." Living water, John 4 : 
10, means water not stagnant, a type of 
grace. 

Here the instrument, water, is given in 
the very form used in the New Testament. It 
is en hudati, with water, not in, nor into water. 
As our Lord baptized with the Spirit, so 
John and the twelve and the early Church 
baptized with water. If the Spirit was poured, 
or sprinkled, or shed forth, or descended, 
then reason would teach that the other in- 
strument, water, be applied in like manner. 
If not, then baptize has one meaning in con- 
nection with the Spirit and an entirely oppo- 
site meaning connected with water. If not, 
then things equal to the same things are not 
equal to one another. If not, then baptize 



BAPTISM BY THE SPIRIT. 19 

with the Spirit covers one set of actions, 
as giving, pouring, sprinkling ; but with 
water, an incongruous set of actions, as form 
a procession, march to some water, descend 
into it, and immerse the unimmersed part 
into the water. Surely there is nothing in 
such an^ operation like pouring out, shed- 
ding forth the Holy Spirit. But things equal 
to the same thing must be equal to one an- 
other. Dr. Carson and friends have said a 
thousand times, baptizo always means the 
same thing. Some say dip; others say im- 
merse, and others plunge. While they jostle 
each other and are all equally positive, yet 
they all agree that baptizo ought to have one 
consistent meaning. Now, the constant use 
of it, in describing the work of the Spirit, 
forbids any such modal acts as marching to 
the water, dipping in water. The Bible 
teaches modal acts utterly opposite. The 
believer does not go to the Spirit, does not 
descend into the Spirit, is not immersed in 
the Spirit. But the Spirit descends, comes, 
falls upon, is poured out. Surely baptizo 



20 BAPTISM. 

cannot cover one set of actions in spiritual 
baptism and a perfectly opposite and contra- 
dictory set of actions when water is the in- 
strument. We hold our Baptist brethren to 
their proclamation : " Baptizo has one mean- 
ing in all literature — in all administrations." 
And let them say Amen, when we say that 
in the "one baptism/' baptizo means the ap- 
plication of the Spirit to the candidate, never 
the opposite ; and in the profession of spir- 
itual baptism, the modal acts must corre- 
spond — the water must be applied. 

Inferences : — 

1. The great body of Christians have ad- 
ministered baptism scriptural ly, when causing 
water to descend. 

2. " The definite act theory— putting one 
under water" — is at variance with all Scrip- 
ture, which uses many words to execute 
baptism. 

3. The definition of baptism in the Baptist 
Confession, " dipping the whole body under 
water," is wrong. There is no dipping under 



BAPTISM BY THE SPIRIT. 21 

the Spirit. There should be none under 
water. 

4. Messrs. Booth and Wayland saying 
baptism is " the immersion/' are in conflict 
with the meaning of baptizo in Scripture. 

5. Dr. Conant errs saying " baptizo means 
simply put into or under water.'' Baptisms 
by the Spirit are without water. The Greeks 
used the word to denote the influence of an 
opiate and wine and taxes and debts and 
doubts and griefs. What folly to say it 
means simply to put under water. The Bible 
has not a record of baptism under water. 



*C 



1j? 



CHAPTER III. 
BAPTIZO — ITS MEANING. 

THIS word occurs about eighty times in 
the New Testament. It describes bap- 
tisms effected by the Spirit — -by John — by 
the Apostles, by Ananias and by Paul. 

Seeing the Spirit poured out upon Corne- 
lius and friends made Peter say, u Who can 
forbid water that these should not be baptized 
who have received the Holy Ghost as well 
as we ? " The baptism of the Spirit, then, 
was the model and the reason. The baptism 
of Saul, when blind and fasting for three 
days, was effected by Ananias coming and 
saying, " Why tarriest thou ; arise and be 
baptized : And, rising up, he was baptized." 
Acts 9:18. This is the literal translation, indi- 
cating the standing posture in SauFs baptism. 

22 



BAPTIZO-ITS MEANING. 23 

The baptism of the eunuch was at some 
water in the desert- way to Gaza : Acts 8. 
But coming to some, he said, " See, water ; 
what doth hinder me to be baptized?" Then 
both Philip and the eunuch descended to 
it, and Philip baptized him. Take bap- 
tism to be a profession of the work of the 
Spirit, then the water was applied to the 
eunuch, not the reverse. He had been read- 
ing in the prophecy of Isaiah, among other 
things, that Jesus should sprinkle many na- 
tions ; sprinkling for purification he had seen 
at Jerusalem. Did he think of Jesus as our 
High Priest, and would he not wish to 
profess the work of our Lord by being 
sprinkled ? Had he received the truth that 
Christ washes us with His own blood : Rev. 
1:5; and would he think of any other way 
of professing that "blood of sprinkling" 
than the way named by Isaiah and practiced 
at Jerusalem ? 

Moreover, consider the inconvenience of 
an immersion for one who was at once to 
ascend his chariot to ride. And no traveler 



24 BAPTISM. 

has ever found in that way water enough for 
an immersion. There are springs, but no 
lake or river. The very exclamation, see 
water, indicates a limited quantity. This, 
put with the fact that he had seen the type 
of our high priest sprinkle for purification 
and the fact that the eunuch was reading 
the prophecy which said Jesus should sprin- 
kle, makes it very evident that the eunuch 
would expect to be baptized as he saw purifi- 
cation effected at Jerusalem. 

The baptism of three thousand at Pente- 
cost, how was it? The Apostles saw the 
multitudes baptized by the Spirit falling on 
them. Could they think of professing that 
work without causing water to descend ? If 
Jesus baptized by pouring out the Spirit, the 
apostles should baptize by pouring the water. 

Besides, consider the improbability of the 
hated disciples being allowed to use the city 
reservoirs ! Besides the hatred of the new 
sect, how unlikely that a people so fastidious 
about purifications should allow three thou- 
sand to be plunged into their fountains ? 



BAPTIZO—ITS MEANING. 25 

If baptism can be executed sometimes by 
immersion, yet there were no conditions for 
such a baptism in that mountain city under 
the control of bitter enemies. But baptism 
is executed in pouring out the Spirit and 
sending tongues of fire upon the heads of 
the disciples. So said John and Jesus. How 
improbable that the twelve would have this 
work professed by an immersion which had 
nothing in common with w T hat was promised 
and with what they had seen ! 

When Jesus said, ye shall be baptized with 
the Holy Ghost, he meant that very work of 
Pentecost. Is baptism then essentially the 
act of putting under water ? Joel and John 
and Jesus and Peter testify to a baptism where 
the Spirit fell and where tongues of fire sat. 
Are they not sufficient witnesses ? 

1 Cor. 10 : 2 teaches that all Israel was 
baptized into Moses, with the cloud and with 
the sea. The same preposition en used here 
occurs in the promise, he shall baptize you, 
en, with the Holy Ghost. The cloud and 
the sea were the instruments, not the receiving 
3 



26 BAPTISM. 

element. The cloud stood behind and the 
waters of the sea were walls on each side. 
Here was a baptism without water — Baptist 
authority says " a dry dip." But there 
was no dip — but a march — the people, 
it is thrice recorded, passed through on 
dry ground. Ex. 14: 22, 29, and 15: 19. 
Poly bi us says Alexander's army was baptized 
all day marching through a lake — Israel was 
baptized marching all night in a waterless 
sea. Both Alexander's army and Israel 
would have perished in an immersion. The 
miracle of the cloud and the sea moved Israel 
to believe the Lord and His servant Moses. 
Ex. 13. Here was baptism of parents and 
children that preceded faith and induced 
faith. And this baptism the Apostle of the 
Gentiles commends. Did Paul then know 
that baptism meant the definite act of putting 
a believer into water ? He records a baptism 
without water that made the people believe. 
1 John 5 : 8 says the Spirit and the water 
and the blood bear witness, and these three 
agree in one. The Spirit is shed forth — 



BAPTIZO—ITS MEANING. 27 

poured out — the blood is sprinkled. Now 
how can water in an immersion agree with 
the Spirit or the blood ? Immersion makes 
the water contradict the mode of applying 
both. Does Jesus shed His blood and pour 
out His Spirit ? To agree with that work, then, 
water should be applied also. The Greek 
Bible used by the Apostles says Nebuchadnez- 
zar was baptized with the dew. Qrigen, one 
of the most learned of the Fathers, says 
that Elijah's altar was baptized. Neither 
Nebuchadnezzar nor the altar were dipped. 
Did the seventy who translated the Hebrew 
into Greek understand Greek ? Was Origen 
behind the times to think and call Elijah's 
altar baptized ? How absurd to say " no 
immersion, no baptism." The Greek Bible, 
the Greek Fathers and the Greek Classics, 
with the cloud and the sea, thunder their 
negative to the monstrous statement. 

Luke 11: 38, Jesus was invited to dine 
with a Pharisee who marvelled that before 
eating he did not baptize (E baptiza). Mark 
7 : 2, has the same charge against the disci- 



28 BAPTISM. 

pies for eating with hands unwashed. Tra- 
dition required that one should cleanse him- 
self oft or diligently or up to the elbows. 
(See margin, verse 3.) Yea, they eat not 
when they come from the market except they 
baptize themselves (baptizontai). The Syriac 
Bible, for hundreds of years, used rantizon- 
tai — sprinkled themselves. That early church 
interchanged these words. And Mark 7 : 4. 
records further, that the Pharisees held to 
baptism (baptismous) of caps and pots and 
brazen vessels and tables. Tradition required 
the Jews to purify themselves and dishes 
before eating. Mark uses baptizo and bap- 
tismos to denote that purification. John 13 
uses niphso to describe the washing of the 
disciples' feet, to denote that they were clean. 
John 13 : 10. That washing was not an 
immersion. Tables were not immersed for 
purification. But Mark says their purifica- 
tion was a baptism. 

Heb. 9 : 10, informs us that in the Jewish 
service there were divers baptisms. They 
could not be divers (Greek diaphorois, di- 



BAPTIZO-ITS MEANING. 29 

verse, different) if they were a simple immer- 
sion. Baptisms were administered in different 
ways in the Jewish ceremonies. There is not 
an immersion among them, and yet they are 
baptisms (baptismos). Heb. 9 specifies bap- 
tism by sprinkling blood and water and 
ashes — affirming that they purified the flesh 
as Christ's blood purges the conscience. 
Num. 19 : 16-20, directs how to purify one 
defiled from the dead. Take running water 
and put it to the ashes of the burnt heifer 
and sprinkle the impure for his cleansing. 
Josephus, 4 : 4, 6, calls this ceremony bap- 
tizing from the dead. Did Josephus under- 
stand the Jewish religion ? Is putting run- 
ning water to the ashes of an heifer and 
sprinkling the unclean an immersion ? Jo- 
sephus says it was a baptism. Where wash- 
ing the body was part of the ceremony of 
purification, still the sprinkling was the most 
essential thing. See Num. 19. And their 
washings for forty years in the desert were 
not and could not be immersions. In the 



3* 



30 BAPTISM. 

whole history of the human family washing 
is usually without immersion. 

The New Testament uses about eighty 
verbs ending in zo. Like baptizo, they have 
many meanings. Katharizo is translated to 
purge, to cleanse, to purify ; euaggelizo, by 
preach and five other words ; emphanizo, by 
show and nineteen other words ; chorizo, by 
put and thirteen other words. Why must 
baptizo be limited ? Dr. Conant, it is said, 
uses about forty words to translate the classic 
baptizo. How wrong, then, to affirm that 
this word in baptism must mean only an 
immersion ! Baptizing from the dead did 
not mean an immersion ; baptizing tables 
did not mean an immersion ; baptizing Eli- 
jah's altar was not an immersion. Divers 
baptisms were not all immersions. If Moses 
baptized almost all things by sprinkling 
blood and ashes and water, what folly to 
affect a wisdom superior to Moses, saying, 
"No immersion no baptism"! Bathing in 
the crowded camps and in the waterless 
desert could not have been an immersion. 



BAPTIZO—ITS 3IEAN1NG. 31 

Seirax 31 : 30. Being baptized from the 
dead and again touching it, what profit is the 
(loutron) washing? Here washing equals 
baptizing. The most important part of this 
purification we have seen was sprinkling. 
Seirax calls it a baptism. Rev. 1 : 5, Christ 
hath washed us from our sins with (en, same 
form John used) his blood. Eph. 5 : 26, 
Christ cleanses the Church with the washing 
of water by the w T ord. This (loutron) wash- 
ing-baptism is by the word. There is no 
immersion in the word. 

But the appeal is carried from the court of 
Scripture to the usage of the Greeks. To 
that court we will go. Look at the defini- 
tion of baptizo in twenty-two lexicons. One 
of the most common is merge. This is its 
meaning when followed by the preposition 
into. This is the force of the word when 
the baptism is into Christ, into Moses, into 
Paul, into the Church. It is not a plunge 
into Christ, not an immersion in His blood, 
not a dip into the Church. If we were 
merged in water as we are in Christ, we 



32 BAPTISM. 

should be devoted to and permanently fixed 
in the water. One stream is merged in an- 
other when it unites and flows in the same 
channel. There is no merging of believers 
with the Jordan. One title is merged in 
another when it is combined in the one owner. 
But immersion has nothing like such merg- 
ings of streams and titles. One stream is 
not dipped in another; it is united and 
merged in the other. 

Baptizo is also translated bathe and wash. 
These verbs are executed by washing the 
body or the feet or the hands. They were 
common among the Jews from Sinai to the 
Jordan. There are no lakes or rivers in the 
whole route. Such a purity for worship, 
Heb. x., requires, " Having your bodies 
washed with pure water." An immersion, 
with the clothes on, is no more washing the 
body with pure water than is rolling it in 
the street. A real washing this text re- 
quires. A dipping is not obedience to it. 

Baptizo is also translated from the classics 
by immerse. But we see that this meaning 



BAPTIZO—ITS MEANING. 33 

agrees neither with Jewish washings, nor 

traditional purifications, nor with the bap- 
tism of the Spirit. While it is one of many 
definitions of the word, we see it is entirely 
inadequate to answer for baptize in its reli- 
gious uses. 

But how unreasonable is it to pitch upon 
one meaning out of more than a doz-rn and 
say, they are not in the church of Christ 
who will not immerse ? Most dictionaries 
give from six to sixteen definitions of bap- 
tizo. Who has the authority to limit us to 
one meaning ? As a mild specimen of this 
dogmatism, take Prof. Curtis. He gives 
Passow's definitions "'dip repeatedly, dip un- 
der, bathe, steep, wet, pour upon ; 2. dip, 
draw water ; 3. X. T., baptize. 5 ' He then 
concludes. " Baptizo means dip, sink, im- 
merse and nothing else, and the command, to 
be baptized is to be immersed, if it is any- 
thinff. M But whv does not Professor Curtis 
say the command is to sink. Passow says 
sink. Why not say it is to steep or to wet 
or to pour upon ? Passow says baptizo 



34 BAPTISM. 

means any of these. How arbitrary is it to 
seize on one and unchurch all who take to 
wet or to pour upon as a good meaning ! 

Liddell and Scott define baptizo, " dip in 
or under water, sink, bathe, soak in wine, 
fall into debt, puzzle with questions ; 2, 
draw water or wine ; 3, baptize." Suppose a 
sect should take puzzle as the meaning, and 
insist that asking questions executed baptism. 
Or suppose a sect took soak in wine, what a 
nice religion that would make ? Or take 
falling into debt as a baptism, how very 
pious would many people and churches be 
found ? The truth is, baptizo denotes a 
change by some controlling influence as wine, 
an opiate, tears, water, taxes, griefs, etc. To 
be baptized is to come under the influence of 
that which baptizes. In ritual purification 
it is with water to be devoted to God. The 
quantity has no more influence in effecting 
a baptism with water than the length of the 
sentence has in a baptism by question. A 
tax of fifty dollars may baptize one as easily 
as a tax of a thousand another A small 



BAPTIZO—ITS MEANING. 35 

seal may authenticate a deed as well as one 
spread over half a sheet. The water is a 
sign of spiritual purification, a profession of 
the work of the Spirit, of cleansing by the 
blood of sprinkling, a token of the " one 
baptism." 

Robinson's Dictionary defines baptizo, 
(( dip in, sink, immerse, draw water, wash, 
lave, cleanse, middle and passive, voice wash 
one's self, i. e., hands or persons, perform ablu- 
tion. 2. Baptize, administer baptism." Of 
these various meanings, who would not pre- 
fer wash to denote purity ? Robinson gives 
" dip in " as one meaning. When the Bap- 
tist Confession was made, they seized upon 
this meaning. But Booth, a Baptist, writes, 
"This makes our sentiment and practice 
ridiculous." Yet the ridiculous dip is the 
practice under the name of immerse. 

Deipnon, supper, in Greek, was the prin- 
cipal meal. Yet the Holy Spirit calls the 
memorial of our Lord's death a supper. 
The Corinthians made a feast of it, taking 
the word in its widest meaning. They were 



36 BAPTISM, 

corrected for their literality. But how much 
like them are those who make the other 
sacrament an immersion ? But if this ex- 
treme meaning must be taken, as in the 
(iark ages, let the washing be thorough, as 
then, men washing nude men, and women 
their companions, before the minister sprin- 
kled the candidate, as then was done, saying, 
I baptize thee. With them, as among the 
Jews, the washing was a preparation for the 
more essential sprinkling. 

The dictionaries, we see, decide that bapti- 
zo has many meanings. We trust it is evi- 
dent enough that we are not bound by any 
dictionary to execute baptism by any partic- 
ular word of the sixteen given as English 
equivalents. Robinson's last definition is 
baptize. This is the word in the Latin, Italic, 
French and English Bibles. Why try to 
put any other in its room ? Dr. Carson, the 
most able Baptist writer, after saying baptizo 
signifies "dip, never expressing anything 
but mode/' added wisely, " I have all the 
lexicographers and commentators against 



BAPTIZO— ITS MEANING. 37 

me/' Dictionaries give from six to sixteen 
meanings to the word. Baptist authors write 
out these meanings and then found their creed 
and practice on one of them ; and then affirm, 
if any other meaning is allowed, it is such a 
willful sin that it excludes you from the 
church of God ! The Fathers said there 
were as many kinds of baptism as of doc- 
trines. The Holy Spirit says there were dif- 
fering baptisms in Israel's service. But now 
we must believe that the Holy Spirit erred in 
saying there were divers baptisms ; diction- 
aries erred also, for baptizo cannot be per- 
formed except in one way. 

We have examined baptizo in dictionaries. 
They do not limit the meaning to immerse.. 
Robinson and others say it means to draw 
water. May we seize on that definition and 
make baptism the act of drawing water? 
How much better his other definition, to* 
cleanse, to wash ? Then the application of 
water harmonizes with the cleansing pro- 
fessed. Our Lord washed the disciples' feet 
to denote that they were clean. John xiii, 

4 



38 BAPTISM. 

This was not an immersion. Pilate washed 
his hands to denote innocence. This was no 
immersion. We have Old Testament and 
New Testament, we have dictionaries, com- 
mentators and churches — we have Greeks, 
Romans and Jews all agreeing that baptism 
is a ceremonial washing. Why divide the 
kingdom for another meaning ? 

TAKE A BIBLE READING. 

1 Pet. 1 : 2, Elect unto obedience and 
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. 
1 John 1 : 7, The blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth us from all sin. Heb. 9 : 14, How 
much more shall the blood of Christ purge 
your conscience from dead works to serve 
the living God ? What does Jesus do ? He 
sprinkles His blood — He washes us from our 
sins — cleanses from all sin — purges the con- 
science. What did John the Baptist call this 
work ? Is he good authority ? John called 
it a baptism. What did Jesus call the out- 
pouringof the Spirit upon the one hundred 
and twenty ? Is He a credible witness ? 
He called it a baptism. He used baptizo to 



BAPTIZO—ITS MEANING. 39 

describe that work. Is baptism then a dip- 
ping and nothing but dipping ? Is the Holy 
Ghost in fault in calling purification with 
the Spirit and with blood a baptism ? Must 
we go blindly against all Scripture and all 
learning to enter the fold of Christ ? 

Josephus 18:5, 2, writes of John's bap- 
tism, " The washing with water would be 
acceptable to God, if they made use of it, not 
in order to the putting away or the remission 
of some sins only, but for the purification of 
the body, supposing still that the soul was 
thoroughly purified by righteousness." What 
did water signify in John's baptisms ? Jo- 
sephus says the purification. Josephus, is 
there any purification by immersion in the 
laws of Moses? None. Josephus, what 
was Jewish law for purifying ? Bathing the 
body and sprinkling the water of separation ? 
Num.19. Josephus did not understand John 

to sing, 

" Ho, every son and daughter, 
Here's the gospel in the water." 

Prof. Strong's able work on Theology is 



40 BAPTISM, 

marred by the assertion of such absurd state- 
ments as " Christian baptism is the immer- 
sion of a believer in water. " " The mode is 
immersion only." "Christ's baptism was 
consecration to death." Jesus said it was to 
fulfill all righteousness. He therein devoted 
himself to His life-work, not to death. True 
death was the end of that work. But it is 
to contradict the record to say His baptism # 
was consecration to death. 

Prof. Strong affirms that " baptism denot- 
ing influence without intus-position (immer- 
sion) is a figment of the imagination." 

How can a scholar write such a sentence, 
when he knows that the Greeks used baptizo 
to denote the influence of wine and debts 
and taxes and sleep and vice and opiates. 
Is it a figment of the imagination that wine 
baptizes without an immersion, or that sleep 
stupefies, or an opiate affects one without an 
immersion in the stupefying drug ? When 
the Greeks for a thousand years used baptizo 
to denote a change produced in the mind by 
grief and by fears, and by questions and by 



BAPTIZO—ITS MEANING. 41 

debts and by taxes, what folly is it to affirm 
that baptizo means an immersion ! Prof. 
Strong relies for proof upon the partial ad- 
mission of some who are not Baptists. Judge 
how much such admissions are worth against 
the texts and dictionaries before quoted. We 
say partial admissions, because many did not 
intend to give full sanction to immersion, 
but, like the dictionaries, to say that one 
meaning of baptizo is to immerse. Prof. 
Strong quotes Dean Stanley; yet Dean Stan- 
ley told the Baptist brethren, in New York, 
that the Church wisely changed the practice 
of immersion of the dark ages. Prof. Strong 
quotes De Stourdza, saying baptizo means to 
plunge. Then he concludes it means nothing 
but to immerse. To plunge is not to immerse. 
If he plunged candidates, the society for the 
prevention of cruelty would soon interfere. 

But it seems the great mind of Dr. Strong, 
like others, can quote meanings of baptizo 
conflicting with immersion and then compla- 
cently assume, against all the Greeks, baptizo 
means to immerse only. Prof. Strong says 

4* 



42 BAPTISM. 

that baptism without intus* position (immer- 
sion) is a figment of the imagination. The 
New Testament speaks of the baptism of 
tables, of divers baptisms, of the baptism oi 
Israel marching on dry ground. Were these 
baptisms by immersion? Surely no man, 
unless his eyes were filled with water, could 
so see it. 

The New Testament very often speaks of 
the work of the Spirit as a baptism. We 
have seen that the modal acts of this baptism 
are utterly opposite to immersion. He de- 
scends, is poured out, comes as rain and as 
dew. Nebuchadnezzar was wet with the dew ; 
baptized is the word in the Greek Bible used 
by our Lord. Prof. Strong translates " bap- 
tized in water and in the Holy Spirit." En, 
in the New Testament, is used over three 
hundred times before words to denote instru- 
mentality. 

Christians are evangelized by the Spirit, not 
in ; sanctified by, not in ; filled with, not in, 
led by, not in, justified by, not in. How it 
contradicts the usage of Scripture to say, 



BAPTIZO-ITS MEANING. 43 

baptized in, not by the Spirit? Eead 1 Cor. 
12 : 13, with this idea. " For in one spirit are 
we all baptized into one body." Was it in 
or by one Spirit, the baptism was effected ? 
What strange changes immersion requires ? 
When the' preposition en is used over three 
hundred times, translated by, or through, or 
with; yet immersion must make it violate 
this usage. 

Prof. Strong summons Dr. Coleman as 
witness that immersion was the practice of 
the early churches. Hear him, page 367 : 
"The Church soon lost the spirituality of her 
religion and the simplicity of her ordinances, 
in endless strifes about forms and ceremonies. 
Perhaps the first of all her departures from 
the institutions of Christ and His apostles 
was to insist upon immersion as emblematic 
of the suffusion of the Holy Spirit and the 
only valid mode of administering the ordi- 
nance. Certain it is that this soon became 
the prevailing mode of baptizing. Other 
changes soon followed/' etc. How many wit- 
nesses like this would establish immersion ? 



44 BAPTISM. 

That we are not shut up to translate bap- 
tizo by .immerse, is manifest also from such 
facts as these : 

1. Some dictionaries do not give immerse 
as its meaning. Could this be its most es- 
sential meaning, and lexicographers not 
know it? 

2. Comparing the frequency of its occur- 
rence, we see that dictionaries give the pref- 
erence to other words. Twenty of them give 
immerse four times ; baptize, six times ; per- 
form ablutions, eight times ; merge, eight 
times : lave, fourteen times. Immerse can- 
not be its most essential meaning, else the 
dictionaries would give it oftener. A merg- 
ing is not an immersion, else why do they 
give merge? To perform ablutions, with 
Jews and pagans, differed from an immer- 
sion. Else why give this meaning eight 
times to immerse four? To lave, the world 
over, is oftener performed without than with 
a dipping. If baptizo meant essentially im- 
merse, why do dictionaries give so many 
other definitions ? See also the varied uses 



BAPTIZO-ITS MEANING. 45 

of baptize The Greeks said men were bap- 
tized with wine, debts, taxes, questions, opi- 
ates, sea, milk, fire, sword, spirit, grief, dis- 
ease, oil, sins, sleep, vice. What did they 
mean by such baptisms? Did they mean 
that men were immersed in wine and swords 
and oil and opiates ? Nay ; but they meant 
to indicate the influence from these agents. 
So baptism by the Spirit means His influence 
upon us. So baptism with water means de- 
votion by its ritual use to God. Baptized by 
wine, taxes and griefs means affected by their 
influence. Baptized into the death of Christ 
means coming under the influence of his 
death, so as to die unto sin and live unto 
righteousness. Baptized into the name of 
the Father, Son and Holy Ghost is to be 
devoted to the triune Jehovah. The water 
of baptism is, then, a symbol of the work of 
the Spirit applying the blood that washes us 
from our sins. All sects agreed in England 
defining baptism to signify and seal our in- 
grafting into Christ and our partaking of the 
benefits of the covenant of grace, and our 



46 BAPTISM. 

engagement to be the Lord's. As our Baptist 
brethren make baptizo their stronghold, we 
turn on it definitions given by Greek diction- 
aries. Suidas, of the tenth century, gives 
pluno, to wash, as the essential meaning. 

Gases, a member of the Greek Church, in 
his large dictionary in two volumes, defines 
baptizo by three Latin words : 1, Brecho, to 
wet, to bedew, to moisten ; 2, Lavo, to wash, 
to bathe ; 3, Antleo, to draw, to pump water. 

How true was the confession of Dr. Car- 
son, " I have all the lexicographers and 
commentators against me." Yes, the Greeks 
give no aid to the men that assume immerse 
as the essential meaning of baptizo. They 
do not give immergo, immerse, as even one 
of its meanings ! How utterly impossible is 
it that immerse is its most essential mean- 
ing if a quarto Greek lexicon did not record 
it ! How wonderfully wise have men become 
that can define Greek better than men that 
spoke Greek — better than men that wrote 
the dictionary of their native tongue ! 






CHAPTEE IV. 
BAPTIZO EN — BAPTIZE IN AND WITH. 

BAPTIZO en — with places, means baptize 
in, as Enon, Salim, Bethabara, the Jor- 
dan, beyond Jordan, and wilderness. These 
names of places, except in the river Jordan, 
forbid the idea of immersion. And when im- 
mersion is eliminated from baptism in so many 
places it is reasonable to understand in the 
Jordan means also the place, not the manner 
of baptism. This is confirmed by the Gospels* 
using two other prepositions as well as en. 
In Matt. 3 : 13, the record is, "then came 
Jesus from Galilee ,; (epi) upon Jordan. Mark 
1 : 9 has (eis) at or to Jordan. If we render 
it to Jordan, it will respond then to " came," 
preceding. If we read it at or in, then it 
will denote the place. These places, except 

47 



48 BAPTISM. 

in the Jordan, exclude immersion. And in 
some seasons an immersion is impossible in 
the Jordan. A dear Baptist brother was 
greatly offended when a traveler told us the 
Jordan was only about two feet deep when 
he waded it. Why ? 

But Baptizo en means " baptize with/' 
when used with the baptizing instrument — 
as water, Holy Spirit, cloud and sea. 1 Cor. 
10:2, baptized en — with — the cloud and with 
the sea. It is the same form as in the gos- 
pels. The Bible has no instance of in water. 
It is always with water. Some texts omit 
the preposition, using only the instrumental 
dative (hudati) with water. If immersion in 
water was the only right baptism, then the 
Scripture is wrong in using the instrumental 
dative ! At least, we ought to find one record 
of such a baptism, if such only is valid. 
Bible baptisms are with the Spirit poured 
out, or with water to profess it, or with the 
sea on either hand, or with the cloud in the 
rear while the feet of Israel marched on dry 



BAPTIZO EN— IN AND WITH. 



49 



ground. How perfectly and utterly we re- 
verse the very letter of Scripture if we affirm 
that these baptisms were " immersions in or 
under water." 




CHAPTER V. 
BAPTIZO EIS— BAPTIZE INTO. 

THESE words mark the result of baptism. 
Baptized into Christ's death means that 
we share the benefits of that death. Bap- 
tized into Christ's body means that we are 
made members of His body. Gal. 3 : 27, 
the baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 
They are in Him, having His righteousness. 
Baptized into forgiveness means the state of 
forgiveness. Baptized into the remission of 
sins and into repentance and into Paul and 
into Moses are expressions of the state of 
the baptized towards Moses and Paul and 
repentance. 

The Bible has no record of baptized into 
water. Eis hudor is not found in the Bible. 
But our immersion brethren in thought and 

50 



BAPTIZO EIS— BAPTIZE INTO. 51 

intention and in practice always insert into 
water. Is it not an unwarrantable license to 
add into water when Scripture never uses the 
words ? If immersion into water was the 
sine qua non of baptism, surely we should 
have had one example. Our brethren disa- 
gree about the meaning of the prepositions 
used with baptizo as w r ell as about the verb 
itself. Some says eis means in ; some, into ; 
others, unto ; others, in reference to. While 
they contend with each other for diverse 
meanings for the verb and for the preposi- 
tions, yet they agree that one must be covered 
to the last hair with water in order to a valid 
baptism. And all this without an instance 
of it in the diverse baptisms of Scripture. 
Baptism into Christ's death, that great work 
of the Holy Ghost, is belittled to make it 
a profession of his death and absurdly the 
candidate is assured that his submission re- 
presents Christ on the cross ! 



CHAPTER VI. 

BAPTISMOS. 

THIS word is used four times. In Mark 
7 : it means the ceremonial purifica- 
tion of pots, cups and tables. In Heb. 6 : 
2, it is used with doctrine, as if doctrine 
qualified baptisms, just as repentance did 
in John's ministry. The doctrines mentioned 
just before were repentance and faith. Heb. 
9 : 10 means ritual purifications in Jewish 
service. Among these ablutions it was re- 
quired that one bathe his body, wash his 
garments and be sprinkled with the water of 
separation. Nu. 19. But there is no im- 
mersion in Judaism. Baptismos gives no 
support to the theory, — no dipping, no bap- 
tism. 



52 



CHAPTER VII 
BAPTISM A. 

THIS word is used twenty-two times. It 
describes the ministry of John, as when 
the Pharisees came to John's baptism. They 
came to more than a dipping. It also de- 
scribes the suffering of our Lord. His 
agony in Gethsemane — His death on Calvary 
were infinitely more than an immersion in 
water. Baptisma as John's ministry and bap- 
tisma as Christ's sufferings were very different 
things. Is baptisma then a covering with 
water ? The Fathers used this word to de- 
scribe martyrdom. They often coveted 
this baptism. Did they mean an immersion 
that should strangle them? Yet no idea 
w T as more common with these Greek Fathers 
than that their blood in martyrdom baptized 
them. A baptisma of blood was where blood 
5* 53 



54 



BAPTISM. 



was shed in any way. Baptisma into the 
death of Christ, Rom. 6 : 4, was not a bap- 
tism when Christ died, but a union with 
Him in the merits of His death now effected 
by the Holy Spirit. There is no record of 
baptisma in or into water. And the opera- 
tion of the Spirit baptizing us into Christ 
has in it nothing like an immersion. There 
is no correspondence in time, state or man- 
ner between the Spirit's work and a dipping. 
Every Greek noun, preposition and verb re- 
fuses to connect baptism with immersion. 
They all utterly repudiate any communion 
with the dipping theory. 




CHAPTER VIII. 
IMMERSION. WHY INTRODUCED? 

PURIFICATION under the Old Testa- 
ment was usually effected by sprinkling 
ashes, water or blood. Priests were purified 
by washing hands and feet at the door of 
the tabernacle. Jesus said of His washing 
Peter's feet, If I wash thee not thou hast 
no part with me. Peter then cried out, Not 
my feet only, but my hands and my head. 
He reasoned, If some washing is good, then 
let me have more. Baptists are not followers 
of John, but of Peter. They practice bap- 
tism into water — John practiced baptism 
with water. They use bapto eis, he used 
baptizo en. The Fathers' writings show 
that even when they used immersion, in 
some cases they baptized the sick upon their 

55 



56 BAPTISM. 

beds. They held that all waters baptized. 
They fell into Peter's error in practice, yet 
they never taught that the mode of ap- 
plying the water was essential. Some added 
exorcism and anointing, and trine immer- 
sion, one for each person of the Trinity. 
What did they mean by baptize? They 
meant bringing a person into a holy state by 
the water and Spirit coacting upon the per- 
son. They thought washing the body would 
absorb more virtue. Therefore, they made 
not an immersion only, but a real washing. 

For many years the Baptists did not im- 
merse. They assert that the English Bap- 
tists made the change in 1641. Till then 
this sect practiced baptism as did other 
churches. They seem to have introduced 
immersion one hundred years after their 
origin in Germany, to separate their church 
from others with a wider mark of distinc- 
tion. Yet the most of them in England to 
this day do not make so much of immersion, 
do not unchurch all who prefer another of 
sixteen definitions of baptize rather than im- 



IMMERSION— WHY INTRODUCED? 57 

merse. But in this country it is dip, or you 
cannot be a member of the church of God. 
Baptized into Moses meant a new disposition 
in Israel to receive and obey Moses. It was 
not true that all were immersed in Moses. 
Nor w T ere the Corinthians immersed or buried 
or plunged into Paul. Baptized into Christ's 
body means our union with, our articulation 
into His church. The virtue of such bap- 
tisms is not in the size of Paul or Moses or 
the church ; but in the new disposition — the 
new creation by the Spirit. Applying the 
Baptist immersion, what a perversion of 
truth to say, All Israel was plunged, dipped, 
immersed into Moses ! All Christians are 
by the Spirit baptized into Christ so as to be 
one in Him. What a caricature of the 
truth is it to say they are dipped into 
Christ. 



CHAPTER IX, 

EEASONS FOR IMMERSION. 

OUR brethren, of course, have some texts 
which they use to justify their theory. 
One is that John baptized in Jordan. Why 
this record, say they, if it was not an im- 
mersion ? The answer has been given be- 
fore. In Jordan designates the place. No 
Baptist reasons that John immersed in sand 
from the record that John baptized in the 
wilderness, nor that he dipped converts in the 
dust because it is written, John baptized in 
Bethabara. John baptized imthe Jordan, in the 
river Jordan, not in water but with water. 
Brother Curtis has found in Mark 1 : 9, 
baptized and eis (into, or to, or at) in the 
same verse. But the eis is not connected 
with water. He has translated eis on the 

58 



REASONS FOR IMMERSION. 59 

preceding page at. But on this page he 
seizes upon into as the meaning. We are 
sorry to take away his comfort. But if eis 
means at on one page, why may it not on 
the other ? Brother Curtis not only contra- 
dicts himself, but makes Matt. 3 : 13 using 
epi at, or upon, conflict with Mark. When 
Matthew says Jesus came from Galilee 
upon the Jordan, he means the same as 
Mark saying he came from Galilee and was 
baptized by John, eis Jordan. Moreover, 
Prof. Curtis' construction conflicts with all 
the many representations in ancient churches 
of our Lord's baptism. He stood at or in 
Jordan while John poured the baptizing 
water. 

2. A second Baptist reason for immersion is 
Col. 2:12, buried with him in Baptism. It 
reconciles many to the sad experience of im- 
mersion that they not only imitate Christ's 
baptism, but that they are buried with Him, 
so come nearer to Him in baptism. But 
Christ is in heaven, not in mill-ponds. He 
was buried over eighteen hundred years ago 



60 BAPTISM. 

— we cannot be buried bodily with him ; 
moreover, his burial was in a room hewn out 
of a rock into which Joseph carried his body 
and rolled a great stone against the door. 
There is nothing in immersion like the burial 
of Jesus. Moreover, a brief statement is 
always to be interpreted by one more full. 
Rom. 6 : 3 tells us we are baptized into 
Christ's death ; verse 4, buried with him by 
baptism into death ; verse 5, planted with 
him ; verse 6, our old man crucified with him ; 
verse 8, died with Christ. Can any of these 
things be affirmed of water baptism? 
Neither does Col. 2 : 12 teach anything 
about water baptism. The Apostle says we 
are complete in Christ, circumcised in His 
circumcision, buried with Him in " the bap- 
tism/' raised up in Him, quickened with Him, 
all trespasses forgiven. Are these attributes 
of water baptism, even if in an ocean ? 
Nay, but they are attributes of " the " one 
baptism. " The" is in the Greek. If it 
had been translated it might have saved 
many from error. Col. 2 teaches us we have 



REASONS FOR IMMERSION. 61 

all in Christ by faith, which is the operation 
of God. How absurd, then, is it to say we 
are buried by dipping and are raised up by 
faith ! But few w 7 ould ever get out of an 
immersion if this was the way of escape. 
Buried with Christ in " the baptism " has no 
more water in it than had baptizing the one 
hundred and twenty with tongues of fire. 
The baptism that buries us with Christ is the 
same that crucifies us and raises us up and 
makes us complete in Him. Water has no- 
thing to do with this baptism but to profess 
it. 

As great dependence is placed on Rom. 6 : 
A y we examine the text more carefully. We 
are buried with Him by baptism into death. 
What death ? Ans., v. 3, Christ's death. 

What buries us ? Ans. Our baptism — by 
baptism. When did Christ die? Ans. 
Over eighteen hundred years ago. Can we 
be buried bodily with Him in time ? Cer- 
tainly not. Can we be placed bodily in 
Joseph's tomb ? Certainly not. How then 
are w r e buried with Him ? In the sense that 



62 BAPTISM. 

He died and was buried and rose for us. 
What baptizes us into his death ? The Holy- 
Spirit's work. Who administers this baptism ? 
Our ascended Saviour. How does He bap- 
tize? By sending, pouring out the Spirit. 
What does the Spirit do for us ? He bap- 
tizes, merges into Christ. What is the bene- 
fit of this baptism ? It makes us complete 
in Christ ? Can water baptism effect such a 
result ? Never. What relation has water 
baptism to this spiritual work ? It can only 
symbolize and profess it. Can we be buried 
in water with Christ ? Nay, He is in 
heaven. Can we die on the cross with 
Jesus ? There was none with Him. Can we 
rise bodily out of water with Him ? This is 
impossible. What is meant by dying with 
Him, being dead with Him, crucified with 
Him, complete in Him, buried with Him ? It 
means our perfect union with Him in His suf- 
ferings for us, so they were as good to us as 
our dying under the penalty and rising to a 
new life. What buries us with Christ ? The 
baptism by the Holy Spirit. Ought water 



REASONS FOR IMMERSION. 63 

baptism to represent Christ's burial ? Nay. 
Of all things His burial by Joseph has no 
special significance except to assure us of the 
reality of His death. Ought baptism to 
represent His death ? Nay. The supper is 
to show forth His death. 

3. Another Baptist reason for immersion 
is 1 Pet. 3: 21. The like figure whereunto 
even baptism doth now save us. Noah is 
figured to have been immersed in the flood 
and drawn out, so Christians now immersed 
in water are drawn out saved. But Peter 
says our baptism is not a washing away of 
the filth of the flesh, but it is the state of the 
conscience through the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ. Peter connects this saving work 
with the finished redemption of our Lord. 
Moreover, Noah was not immersed. The 
antediluvians only were immersed, and our 
brethren themselves own that the baptism of 
the Spirit alone can save. Peter, then, like 
Paul, was not speaking of a water baptism 
that cannot save, but of the baptism of the 
Spirit. 



64 BAPTISM. 

4. A fourth Baptist reason is found in 
1 Cor. 10 : 2. All Israel was baptized into 
Moses with the cloud and with the sea. The 
cloud stood between them and the Egyptians, 
yet baptized them. The sea, in walls miles 
apart, enclosed them, yet baptized them, so 
cloud and sea made them belkve the Lord 
and his servant Moses. Ex. 14 : 31. Dr. 
Conant happily defines this as a baptism 
bringing into a new state of life and experi- 
ence. This was the baptism of Israel going 
through the sea on dry ground. The Egypt- 
ians were immersed, not baptized. Israel was 
not immersed, but baptized with the cloud 
and sea. Apply Dr. Conant's idea of Israel's 
baptism to Horn. 6:4. It brings into a new 
state of life. It unites us with Christ. 

5. A fifth Baptist reason for immersion is 
the baptism of the Eunuch. He had been to 
Jerusalem to worship ; he was reading Isai- 
ah's prophecy of Christ. Philip asked him 
if he understood it. Being invited, he ascended 
the chariot and explained Isaiah. The Eunuch 
had seen the priests purify the people by 



REASONS FOR IMMERSION. 65 

sprinkling, had read the prophecy that said 
Christ should sprinkle many nations ; dis- 
covering water, he said, See, water; what 
doth hinder me from being baptized ? Upon 
his confessing Christ, " they both descended 
to the water both Philip and the Eunuch, 
and he baptized him." These words marked 
are a literal rendering of the Greek. There 
is no immersion recorded ; there was no pre- 
paration of garments for it ; there has never 
been found in that desert water enough for 
an immersion. How unlikely there was any ? 
He had seen priests sprinkle ashes, blood, 
incense and water ; he was reading the proph- 
ecy of Christ sprinkling many nations. 
How naturally, then, he would expect to 
profess purification in the way he had seen 
and read of its being done. 

6. A sixth reason given for immersion is 
John 3 : 23. Much tvater. Why much water 
if it were not for immersion ? The answer is 
found in the preceding verse recording that 
Jesus and the crowds attending his ministry 

were also in the same region. He was now 
6* 



66 BAPTISM. 

making more disciples than John, John (4 : 
1.) Much water would be needed for the two 
great congregations. Enon in Hebrew means 
fountains. It is the plural of en — fountain. 
Jesus and John could assemble multitudes in 
that part of Judea, because there was much 
water in these fountains. The learned Am- 
brose says there were twelve fountains and 
seventy palm-trees. At Elim, Israel came 
to twelve fountains. Ex. 15 : 27. Our im- 
mersion brethren suppose that these fountains 
may have poured their water into reservoirs 
sufficient for immersion. John 3 : 23 can 
serve immersion, then, only by improbable 
guess-work. 1, that Baptizo means here not 
any of its many meanings except immerse ; 
2, that these fountains drained into a reser- 
voir ; and 3, that the mention of these many 
springs was for immersion and not for the 
drinking and cooking purposes of the great 
multitude. 

7. A seventh reason given for immersion 
is John 3 : 5 — bom of water. The other 
part of the verse is born of the Spirit. We 



REASONS FOR IMMERSION. 67 

have seen that the Spirit works by coming 
upon, descending, pouring upon. If this is 
giving a new creation — a birth into the king- 
dom — then birth by water should be pro- 
fessed by pouring out, causing to descend. 
Nicodemus was an inquiring Jew. He found 
that outward ordinances had not satisfied ; 
he came to ask what farther was necessary. 
Jesus guides him at once to a purification by 
the Spirit. It was not yet time to say, all 
Mosaic observances are ended. But it was 
time to say that a man must have more than 
water purification ; he must have with it a 
spiritual purification — so be born of water 
not only, but of the Spirit. There was no 
immersion for purification as there is no im- 
mersion into the Spirit. 



CHAPTER X. 

POSTUEE IN BAPTISM. 

ALL ancient pictures known represent 
Jesus as standing when baptized by 
John. When he received the baptism of the 
Spirit he was going up from Jordan. The 
Spirit came on Him while He was walking. 
Classic Greeks speak of armies baptized all 
day while marching. The Spirit baptized 
the one hundred and twenty at Pentecost 
when they were sitting ; Saul was baptized 
standing. 

Now shall we seize on one position, and 
say baptism must be administered to one 
standing ? That would make us like some 
seizing upon one meaning of baptize. What 
folly to legislate that in baptism the baptized 
must stand ! Did not Saul stand ? Does not 

68 



POSTURE IN BAPTISM. 69 

Luke use the word seventy-nine times, so we 
can be sure of our posture ? Very true — 
true, this word forbids an immersion. But 
yet there was a baptism of the Spirit filling 
the disciples, and with tongues of fire rest- 
ing upon them where they were sitting. 
Even when the error had crept in that water 
and Spirit must co-work, yet they baptized 
the sick upon their couches. But the theory 
" no dipping no baptism " was not true in 
any of these baptisms. There is no record 
of a baptism in lying down. Sitting, stand- 
ing or walking are Bible postures. 




CHAPTEE XL 
THE BAPTISM OF CHILDREN. 

OUR Baptist brethren deny that children 
have any such right to ordinances in the 
New as they had in the Old Testament — 
that the door of the gospel church breaks all 
family relations — that we enter the Church 
without wife or child. And all because it is 
written " he that believeth and is baptized/' 
They insist that faith in the candidate must 
precede baptism, because in this one verse 
faith is mentioned first. 

But take the great Commission, Matt. 28, 
translate it literally. Going disciple all na- 
tions, baptizing them into the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Ghost, teaching them to observe. Here bap- 
tizing is put before teaching. Must we bap- 

70 



THE BAPTISM OF CHILDREN, 71 

tize before we teach ? 1 Cor. 6 : 11, Ye are 
washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified. If 
the order of words is an authority, first bap- 
tism, then sanctification, then justification. 
Is this the divinely appointed order? Here 
and in the great Commission our brethren 
agree with us that the order is not authori- 
tative. Why then rule the children out of 
the kingdom by a catch at words ? Better 
take the order baptize, teach, as in Mat. 28, 
or wash, sanctify, in Paul's epistle to Corinth. 
Here are two texts putting baptize and wash 
before teach. Then the order of words is 
two to one in the children's favor. 

Our brethren assume that the New Testa- 
ment made such a change in the administra- 
tion of God's grace, that the church is a new 
institution and the conditions of membership 
are changed. But the New Testament and 
Old alike teach that the virtue of an ordi- 
nance is the state of the heart.— -Circumcis- 
ion denoted the heart's devotion. Why can- 
not the same principle be applied to the bap- 
tism of children ? While God commanded 



72 BAPTISM. 

the heart to be circumcised, yet he required 
circumcision of the flesh on the eighth day. 
When the Old Testament calls Israel my 
people, a hundred times — and my chosen — 
my beloved and saints — how wrong to deny 
that Israel was a church ! 

Besides, the New Testament addresses com- 
mands to parents and children as equally in 
the church. Eph. 6 : 4, Bring up your 
children en, not m, in, not into the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord. Lu. 18 : 16, 
Of such is the kingdom of heaven, i. e., the 
kingdom belongs to them. Yet must they 
be excluded from the very badge of member- 
ship? Yea, denied any membership? The effort 
is made to neutralize this text by saying the 
kingdom belongs to the childlike. See the 
wrong of this interpretation. JBrephos is 
the word that described the infant Saviour in 
the manger. The plural is brepha. When 
parents brought such to Jesus (brepha is the 
word) and the twelve resisted them, Jesus 
said, suffer the little children to come unto 
me and forbid them not. The Apostles 



THE BAPTISM OF CHILDREN. 73 

thought baby-blessing wrong. But the Mas- 
ter corrected their carnal reasoning. He 
imparts spiritual blessings to babes, and He 
says the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. 
Sad if it is now unlawful to bring them to 
Jesus. Jesus baptized babes with His Spirit. 
Is it wrong to profess that spiritual work ? 

Again consider children were in the cov- 
enant of works and fell in Adam. Was the 
covenant to work only for their condemna- 
tion ? Is not grace to abound to them even 
as the evil of the fall has afflicted them ? 
Has the covenant principle no application 
to them but for ruin ? If death reigned by 
the sin of one, shall not grace reign through 
our Lord Jesus Christ? Is not this the 
doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Eom. 5 ? Is 
it eternal law that the iniquity of fathers can 
be visited on children and yet there is no> 
counter-principle of visiting the good of par- 
ents? 

Also consider that God has always included* 
children in covenant-dealing. As with Adam^ 
so with Noah, Abraham and David. When. 
7 



74 BAPTISM. 

He covenanted with Israel it was with the 
men not only, but with their wives and little 
ones. Have the principles of God's govern- 
ment so changed that He cannot embrace 
children in covenant privileges ? The chil- 
dren have rights in all other governments. 
Have they been ruled out of the best govern- 
ment? What Stephen called the church in 
the wilderness had blessings for them in the 
two sacraments. Circumcision and the Pass- 
over. Has the Gospel in its fuller grace 
nothing for the family? Has the Head of 
the church repealed that law which for four 
thousand years brought unspeakable blessings 
to children ? Where is the repeal ? Was it 
by the mouth of Peter, saying the promise 
is to you and to your children ? Did He 
annul that principle when Paul said to the 
jailer, believe on the Lord Jesus and thou 
shalt be saved and thy house ? 

If that principle was repealed, why is 
there not only no record of it, but no com- 
plaint about it ? Jewish converts were very 
slow to give up ceremonial observances. 



THE BAPTISM OF CHILDREN. 75 

But did they give up all the rights of their 
children without a whisper of complaint? 
How impossible ! 

Consider also that there is no such break 
between the Old and New Church as our 
brethren suppose. The New Church has the 
same scriptures — the same promises — is built 
not only upon apostles, but upon prophets — is 
grafted into and partakes of the fatness of 
the good olive tree, Rom. 11. While Jews 
and proselytes brought their families with 
them into the kingdom, yet if one parent 
remained an idolater the children were 
excluded. Is this the law of the New Tes- 
tament? Nay. It is more comprehensive 
than Judaism. 1 Cor. 7 : 14, The children 
are clean, and so suitable to be offered to 
God when but one parent is a believer. 

In the days of the prophets, God said, 
" Thou hast taken thy sons and thy daugh- 
ters whom thou hast borne unto me, and 
these hast thou sacrificed ; . . . thou hast 
slain my children." Ez. 16: 20, 21. Are not 
children born unto God now as well as then? 



76 BAPTISM. 

Was it wrong then to turn them over to idols 
and yet not wrong now to deny that they 
belong to God ? 

Consider also that all the historic churches, 
Greek, Roman, Armenian, Coptic, baptize 
their children. Some retain also circumcision. 
How came infant baptism into them all, 
unless from the teaching of Apostles. Origen 
says they received it from the Apostles ? The 
Council of Carthage was asked to decide if 
baptism, like circumcision, must be on the 
eighth day. Did the Church understand 
that infants' rights had been abolished? 
They decided that baptism need not be on 
the eighth day, but at an early period. When 
Pelagius was teaching that infants had no 
original sin, and was accused then of denying 
baptism to them, he said, not only he did not, 
but that he had not heard of the most im- 
pious heretic that denied infant baptism. 
Pelagius was born in England, traveled over 
Europe, Africa and Palestine. If there had 
been a sect in Christendom refusing to bap- 
tize children, he would have found it. But 



THE BAPTISM OF CHILDREN. 77 

our brethren try to neutralize this historical 
argument. They find a Tertullian who ad- 
vises a delay of baptism in the case of chil- 
dren and young people, that baptism might 
wash away as many sins as possible. 

The error then was rife that w T ater co- 
acted with the Spirit in cleansing the soul. 
Tertullian advised delay, to have the greatest 
benefit in sweeping away accumulated sins. 
But the very advice to delay proves the ex- 
istence of the rite. If there was no such 
practice, would a sane man ask that it be 
postponed ? And when his reason for it was 
a mere superstition that baptism effaced guilt, 
how absurd to make such advice weigh more 
against baptism than the writings of all the 
Fathers for it. 

Consider the practice of the Apostle of the 
Gentiles. When Lydia's heart was opened 
to the gospel, she was baptized and her fam- 
ily. There is no record of any faith but 
hers. After baptism, she grounded her plea 
not upon the family 's faith, but she said, If 
ye have judged me to be faithful (Gr., pistane, 
7* 



78 BAPTISM. 

believing), abide in my house. Most Baptist 
writers cite the jailer's family as believing ; 
but any Greek scholar will tell them that 
Acts 16 : 34 ascribes faith to the jailer only. 
Believing in God, he rejoiced with all his 
house, is the literal rendering. The Apostle 
had promised, " believe on the Lord Jesus, 
and thou shalt be saved and thy family" 
Acts 16 : 34 records that he did believe. And 
when any Greek scholar says that this text 
ascribes faith to the family also, you may 
know he misrepresents the record. Believ- 
ing is a participle nominative singular, 
agreeing with jailer. 

1 Cor. 1 : 16 teaches that Paul baptized 
the family of Stephanas ; but did not remem- 
ber baptizing any other family, because Christ 
sent him not so much to baptize as to evan- 
gelize. Stephanas was a disciple present 
with Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians. 
It is certain from 1 Cor. 16 : 15 he was a be- 
liever. Paul baptized not Stephanas, but his 
family. And when he adds, after oikon of 
Stephanas, tina allon, it shows how customary 



THE BAPTISM OF CHILD REX. 79 

was family baptism. He baptized his fam- 
ily, but did not recall any other family. He 
thanked God that he baptized only Crispus 
and Gains, lest people should say he had 
baptized them into his own name. Did this 
imply that baptism was withdrawn from 
adults ? He baptized two adults and one 
family, and did not remember a second at 
Corinth. If adult baptism is continued, how 
certain, then, is family baptism. As in the 
Old, so in the Xew Covenant, parents took 
their families. 

See, Paul salutes families, commends Xoah's 
faith in building an ark to save his family. 
Peter says the like figure saves us. But how 
it grates upon that likeness to say the family 
is excluded ! 

See Peter's work first opening the Church 
to the Gentiles. The angel promised Corne- 
lius, Peter shall speak words to thee by which 
thou shalt be saved and thy family. Acts 11 : 
14. And Peter seeing the Spirit fall upon 
Cornelius and family and friends, arranged 
that they should be baptized. Acts 10 : 44, 48. 



80 BAPTISM. 

Did Peter do wrong in baptizing the family 
with Cornelius and kinsmen ? Did the angel 
misunderstand the constitution of the Church? 
Did he promise too much, saying Peter shall 
tell thee words by which thy family shall be 
saved? How evident is it that neither the 
apostles nor angels yet knew that children 
were turned out of the Church of God ! 

Matt. 18: 5 commends receiving little 
children as receiving Christ. Are they then 
unfit to receive the outward sign that they 
belong to him ? Was there ever a shepherd 
who thought it a profanation to put his mark 
upon his lambs? Has Jesus recalled the 
command, " feed my lambs ?" 

Gal. 3 teaches that the blessing of Abra- 
ham has come on the Gentiles,tbat to Abraham 
and his seed were the promises made, that if 
we be Christ's, we are Abraham's seed and 
heirs according to the promise — that the law 
four hundred and thirty years after the cov- 
enant cannot disannul it. Does this change, 
then, the foundation-principle of the Church ? 
Has the Gospel taken away what the law 



THE BAPTISM OF CHILDREN. 81 

could not do? Paul taught the opposite. 
In all God's covenants parents acted for their 
offspring. Parents could lay up iniquity for 
their children. Job 21 : 19. Children from 
the days of Abel to Zacharias could suffer for 
the parents' sins, lie in exile for them, and 
confess them. Dan. 9. But is there nothing 
in contrast with this evil ? — " His blood be 
on us and on our children/' was the impre- 
cation. Israel is still suffering for it. Can 
the curse run through a thousand generations, 
while " the promise " ends with parents ? 
Nay, nay, nay. This principle underlies all 
governments. It is in the very organization 
of society. It was on this principle that 
John was circumcised. Lev. 1 : 59, and the 
infant Jesus was taken to the temple and 
presented to the Lord. Luke 2 : 22. How 
impossible, then, for this principle to be in- 
operative now ! 

Again and again we are assured the seed 
of the righteous is blessed ; that God loves chil- 
dren for their parents' sake ; that He claims 
that, as the souls of parents, so the souls of 



82 BAPTISM. 

children are His. Ez. 18 : 4. The objection 
that the babe is unconscious, has no more 
weight against infant baptism than it has 
against circumcision, than it had against 
Christ's blessing infants, than it had against 
presenting the infant Saviour to the Lord. 
If the sign of devotion was good from Abra- 
ham to John the Baptist, is it not as good 
to Gentiles, who, as stones, have been raise 
up as spiritual children unto Abraham ? If 
Abraham's faith brought blessings to his race 
— if David's secured favors for his seed — if 
parents' faith in Egypt saved the first born— 
if the Syrophenician's brought health to her 
daughter — if Jairus' brought life to his dead 
child, and if the centurion's faith brought 
healing to his slave, cannot faith now bring 
anything to children ? Are such narratives 
misleading and delusive? Do they not con- 
firm the command, " disciple," baptizing and 
teaching all nations ? Yea, when our Lord 
has assembled His people at the last, He will 
apply this principle, saying to the Father, 
" behold, I and the children which God 
hath given me." Heb. 2 : 13. 



THE BAPTISM OF CHILDREX. 83 

Our brethren object, there is no command. 
Answer: — 1. There is no command to be 
called Baptist, none to publish a Baptist 
Bible, none to immerse. There is no com- 
mand to pray in families, none to observe 
the first day of the week, none for women to 
commune. But all God's covenant dealings 
imply this filial relation, all governments 
recognize it, all the Apostles taught it, and 
all their churches practice it to this day. 

2. Let children first believe. Answer : — 
The brepha infants were not required first to 
believe ; the first born in Egypt had not 
first to believe ; the infant Jesus had not first 
to believe before circumcision ; the infant 
Jew now in exile has not first to believe be- 
fore it suffers ; the Syrophenician's daughter 
had not first to believe, nor had Jairus' dead 
child first to believe. Has not a parent's 
faith as much power now ? Can Dr. An- 
derson and Prof. Curtis write of the Jailer's 
family " it is explicitly affirmed that they 
were all believers ? " Had those brethren 
read their Greek Testament they would find 



84 



BAPTISM. 



believing agreeing with Jailer only. So the 
Jailer and Lydia and Cornelius and Ste- 
phanas by faith, like Noah, saved their fami- 
lies. Were these families without children? 




CHAPTER XII. 
HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 

THE history of the Apostles in the Acts 
extends to 63 a.d. One has counted 
forty-eight names of converts in the New 
Testament. The baptism of seven of them 
is recorded, and with them four families. If 
this ratio four to seven is applied to the forty- 
eight, it gives twenty-seven families baptized. 
But the ratio may have been even more. Not 
only did the four Crispus, Lydia, Cornelius 
and the Jailer, accept infant baptism, but the 
Eunuch is reported to have returned home, 
established a Christian Church, which to this 
day baptizes infants. Some followers of Simon 
Magus also baptized their children. Saul, 
another of the seven, we find baptized 
children. So the proportion of four to 
seven may be six to seven. 

8 85 



86 BAPTISM. 

But with four to seven for the ratio, in 
one hundred thousand converts there would 
have been fifty-seven thousand families. 
Here is one of the sources of the rapid 
growth of the early church. Parents took 
their children with them into the kingdom, 
and trained them for Christ. May not loose 
notions about children's obligations now 
hinder the growth of the Church ? Are not 
multitudes justifying their neglect of wor- 
ship by this evil theory that parent's faith 
and example cannot obligate children ? 

President Dwight has collected the follow- 
ing testimony from the Fathers. Was he 
able to weigh such evidence ? 

1. Justin Martyr writes of persons made 
disciples of Christ from their infancy. That 
infancy was from the year 70 A.D., so in the 
days of the Apostles. 

2. Irenseus was a disciple of Polycarp, 
John's convert. He writes of the great 
pleasure he had in hearing Polycarp repeat 
the teachings of our Lord as John taught 
him. He writes,, Christ came "to save 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 87 

infants and little ones and children and 
youths and elder persons who are born 
again." By born again, President D wight 
says Irenseus " means baptized as he else- 
where shows." Here was a witness only a 
few years after John. 

3. Origen, born 184 The Church hath 
received the tradition from the Apostles that 
baptism ought to be administered to infants. 

4. Cyprian writes of the decision of sixty- 
six ministers in council at Carthage, " that 
no infant is to be prohibited from the benefit 
of baptism, although but just born." The 
question asked of the Council was, ought 
baptism be on the eighth day ? 

5. Gregory Nazianzen exhorts parents to 
offer their children to God in baptism. 

6. Augustine, of the fourth century — 
"The whole Church practices infant bap- 
tism. It was not instituted by Councils, but 
was always in use." " Had not read of one 
Catholic or heretic who maintained that bap- 
tism ought to be denied to infants." "This 
the Church has always maintained." 



88 BAPTISM. 

7. Pelagius — " Who can be so impious as 
to hinder the baptism of infants?" 

Here are seven of the leading writers of 
the Church from the Apostles down to the 
fourth century. What folly to deny all this 
evidence because Tertullian asked that bap- 
tism be delayed in the case of children and 
youths and unmarried people ! 

One who has studied history a great deal 
finds: 

1. For four hundred years Tertullian was 
the only one asking delay. 

2. For the next seven hundred years none 
asked for or even delayed baptism. 

3. In 1120 a sect arose denying infant 
salvation and so, by inference, ruled out in- 
fant baptism — a sect soon immersed into 
nothingness. 

4. In 1522, five years after the Glorious 
Reformation, the Anabaptists revived the 
error. 

And, moreover, on the graves of children 
are engraved all the peculiar appellations 
of Christians. They are called by the very 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 



89 



names the Holy Spirit gives to Christians. 
They are called holy, believing ; said to re- 
pose in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob ; repose in peace among the saints — in 
the peace of the Lord Jesus. If Paul dis- 
tinguished Christians by such terms as holy, 
believing, faithful saints, what did Paul's 
converts mean when they wrote these words 
on the graves of their little ones ? The cata- 
combs of Rome testify to the infant member- 
ship of the early churches. Thousands of 
children, as well as parents, also died there 
for Jesus. Their friends recorded their devo- 
tion. An acquaintance visited the catacombs. 
He confirms all that has been given in such 
testimony. The very stones of the tombs 
cry out against depriving children of their 
place in the church of God. 




CHAPTEE XIII. 

THE RELATION OF BAPTIZED CHILDREN TO 
THE CHURCH. 

THERE is no difficulty in understanding 
that children are in the State, with rights 
and duties. Why cannot children be " of 
the kingdom " in the same way ? They are 
under the care of the Church, are to be 
trained up for Christ. As soon as they have 
the qualifications as in the State so in the 
Church they are to perform the duty of 
members. In the Protestant Church these 
qualifications are knowledge and piety. See 
Confess, of Faith, page 436, and Meth. Dis- 
cipline, page 30. The Churches so practicing 
get as good members in the judgment of the 
world as those who deny infant baptism. 

How wrong is the charge " that piety is 
not required," % that these Churches receive 
members without conversion." 
90 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CONCLUSION. 

1. It is in accord with apostolic practice to 
transfer Baptizo, not to translate it. 

2. There is no duty, then, resting upon 
the Church to expend millions to introduce 
immerse or dip. These words do not respond 
to Baptizo in its varied meanings. The effort 
to make them has signally failed even with 
Baptists. They disuse their own Bible, after 
millions expended for it. 

3. Baptism for party divisions is misused. 
Unity is the Bible idea of " the one bap- 
tism/' A baptism to be the badge of divi- 
sion, is contrary to the essence of Scriptural 
baptism, which is " all into one body." 

4. When the Pharisees made a handle of 
Jesus baptizing more disciples than John, 

91 



92 BAPTISM. 

Jesus retired from Judea into Galilee. This 
is opposite to the spirit which crowds upon 
the work of others, seeking proselytes to our 
mode of administration, to our church, as 
more pure for its immersion. 

5. If the authority of dictionaries is al- 
lowed its force, if the one baptism by the 
Spirit is the model, if the example of Apostles 
is followed, baptism must be with, not into, 
water, and families as well as individuals 
must receive baptism. 

6. The Church erred by adding exorcism, 
oil, white robes, processions and nude wash- 
ings to the simple ordinance. 

7. There is no consistent agreement among 
Baptist writers differing about Baptizo and 
the prepositions used with it. Truth is con- 
sistent. Error originates disagreement. 

8. God\s people, — called elect, chosen, 
beloved, family, — always embraced children 
with covenant privileges. When the New 
Testament calls His people by their new 
name (Isa. 62 : 2) — Christians — the Church 
yet does not lose its identity. When the 



CONCLUSION. 93 

natural branches are broken off and the 
kingdom taken from unbelieving Jews, then 
the Gentiles are made the inheritors of the 
promises made to Israel. This truth, so often 
asserted, secures the rights of children. 

9. The Westminster Assembly of 1644, 
after hearing the Baptist members two or 
three days plead for immersion as one mode 
of baptism wisely rejected it. 




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